Vladimir Putin felt compelled to talk directly to the American people about Syria. The diplomacy at the UN and in Geneva meanwhile continues. A new UN report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic shows that both sides in the Syrian conflict have committed war crimes. Indonesia will not go along with a plan by Australia's Prime...
President Obama has offered conditional support to the another round of diplomacy on Syria and called off Congress' vote on the authorization of military action. Meanwhile, France will put a resolution under Chapter VII on the Security Council's agenda to force Syria to clean up its chemical weapons stock under international control for destruction. The trial of Kenya's deputy President, William Ruto,...
With the focus now on the Russian proposal to bring Syrian chemical weapons under “international control,” questions that remain include how would this actually work? Who would take control? One likely participant in the implementation would be the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). From the OPCW website: As of today...
An inadvertent suggestion by John Kerry may have provided a solution to the international stalemate on Syria, as it led to a Russian proposal to bring chemical weapons under international control for destruction. The US is open but sceptical to the proposal, as are its allies. Syria's foreign minister has welcomed the proposal, tacitly admitting in the process that the...
OK, I have to admit I was not familiar with the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati before reading this article, but I was heartened to learn that the U.S. signed a maritime boundary treaty with it on Friday. Sometimes supporters of U.S. ratification suggest that it would be almost impossible to work with Law of the Sea signatories like...
Residents in northeast Nigeria say at least 13 vigilantes and five Boko Haram members have been killed after the group launched attacks on the town of Benisheik. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied that he was behind a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people, as the White House pressed ahead with the effort of persuading Congress to approve a military strike to punish...
You never know, President Obama might turn things around. On the other hand, things sound bad on the Hill. The Administration would have to run the table to get a yes-vote from both houses of Congress (it's uphill even in the Senate). It may not be too early to start writing the post-mortems. The key mistake Obama made was going to Congress...
For a number of years now, I've enjoyed watching TED talks and TEDx events on a variety of subjects in the realms of science, design, and society. TED may be an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but TED talks already go well beyond those topics and tomorrow, September 9, there will be a TEDx event on issues of international justice. TEDxHagueAcademy...
As Samantha Power (the new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) demands unilateral action and rages against the deadlocked Security Council, it is worth thinking again about the odd structure of the UNSC and its veto power for P-5 members. In this light, I would point our readers to an interesting piece by Andrew Carswell forthcoming in the Journal of Conflict...
Syria dominated (and continues to dominate) the headlines this week, and we featured many takes on the developing situation through our Syria Insta-Symposium. From our regular contributors, Julian pondered whether President Obama would reveal the international law justification on his position regarding intervention in Syria and Kevin questioned US Secretary of State John Kerry's classification of Syria as the United States' "Munich...
In a hotly anticipated decision, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands affirmed today that the Dutch State is responsible for the deaths of three men at Srebrenica. As the press release recounts, "The men had sought refuge in the compound of the Dutch battalion (Dutchbat). Dutchbat decided not to evacuate them along with the battalion and instead sent them away...
